Quote Originally Posted by Lunalepsy View Post
So glad someone brought up 1.0! Even if design was clunky, gameplay was somewhat challenging. Of course, people do not like that kind of framework anymore, so the game has been simplified for the masses.
FFXIV 1.0 had a really badly implemented stamina system for combat and was not fun for anyone. You started battle with a set amount of stamina and each attack used it up and there was no auto-attack. When you were all dry, you just sat and waited for it to regenerate to use another thrust. Archers as well as classes with throwing weapons had to keep track of their ammo. Your attacks had a “sweet spot” range where you had to be a specific distance away to deal good damage depending on your weapon.

Just because something is “complex” doesn’t mean it’s necessarily good.

There were some neat things though. 1.0 had a mechanic where classes had specific abilities that could take off enemy body parts and limit their special attacks, but fighting individual world mobs has long lost its importance since 1.0.

That being said, the slow and steady homogenization of the jobs feels like SE trying to put a bandaid on combat as the levels increase every expansion, more jobs and abilities are added, and more players join. They’ve been getting rid of anything that makes jobs difficult to balance at a cost of identity. I think SE needs to overhaul the entire combat system again like how Yoshi-P did from 1.0 to 1.23.